Saturday, December 22, 2007

From Bad => to Worse => to Not-Too-Bad!

I am fascinated by the way a blurry photo forces me to dig into my creativity and make up the missing parts. This is much more fun than working from an ideal photo where everything is right there. A clear reference, while easier, also has the risk of "inhibiting changes and consequently curbing creativity" (in the words of Alex Powers).

I went for reductive painting - loaded the Tyvek with paint, and then started blocking in the shapes with a damp my brush. this time, I decided to document the process, taking photos of the different stages.

As you can see, the first stage was quite discouraging, and it's not always easy to remember to not give up and throw it all when things look, well, like that....

...but - that was just the beginning, so I went on to the second stage (which got gloriously worse!), and then got so much into the painting that I forgot to take more photos.

I thoroughly enjoyed wokring on this one - it was fascinating to finally see an actual face emerging from the total chaos.

Thanks to a brilliant critique comment from The JohnnyB, I managed to finally get some lost edges, something I keep striving for, but always fail to do. As the painters amongst you know, once you hold the brush in your hand, the thinking part in your brain just shut off and goes on a break. This time, I managed to actually think while painting - whoa! A novel experience, almost a scary one.

So, although the old frail man has transformed into one cranky dude in this version, I am quite happy with the way it turned out. Quite an attitude he has, eh?

[looking for a title], Watercolor on Tyvek, 12" x 9"

Can't quite title this one without leading the viewer to a biased interpretation - - - any suggestions?

Yev,I was just about to dive into an offensive what-do-you-mean-much-better-than-the-older-versions-are-you-sayin'-they-were-bad - - - but, looking back at them - yup, you are right! Nice one about confusing the viewer :-)

RHCarpenterThanks. I become wiser with every painting I make - and yet, apparently, I still have along way to go :-)